Good at Life

I have a friend who is really good at life.

She manages her own mind really well. She is very generous to friends. She is a rigorous party thrower. She has an impeccable sense of design which you can see in her wardrobe, her hairstyles, and her interior design. She is married to her Lover. And that is not just a title. The relationship is actually that romantic - think original songs written and sung with the piano. 

When I learned that Aynur and her family were going to leave the country and move back to Turkey where she is from, I was super bummed. I was bummed on the level of pretty much just not wanting to think about it at all. So much of my fun was centered around them. So much of my social life. So much of my filling up was oriented towards them.

To give you an idea…after I proposed to my husband, we arranged to go to their house for champagne. Aynur was so curious about where I came from that she took a train with a broken foot to my mom’s house in the woods of Connecticut when I wasn’t even there, to hang out with my sisters and get to know the place.

Once they left, I was very aware of the hole - the hole in our social life and my heart.

But something unexpected happened. Because they were no longer there to host the best dinner parties, throw the best gatherings (although they continue to come back just to throw those sometimes), and generally shine, I found that I had to pick up the slack in my own life. My husband and I learned how to put together a nice dinner party. We began to host more gatherings. I had to be a more generous friend. Shortly, I had to come more into my own power as I could no longer rely on theirs.

I had to celebrate missing them by learning their lessons and absorbing more of their rituals. I wonder if this is generally a good way to process loss.

One of the most important lessons my husband and I learned from Aynur is that it's okay to try. So often, we're taught to be cool and aloof, to act like we didn't try too hard, as if effort equates to neediness. But Aynur showed us that it's okay to make an effort, especially when it comes to creating memorable experiences for others.

Now when we get together with Aynur and David, it is more intensive time. One of us has to travel. And because I have come into my power, we are more equally matched. We fall into this seamless flow with years of history and miles of adventures between us. It just happens. 

Ultimately, I became better at life too.

Cowboys and Marlboro Men

When I was on a year abroad in college, I choreographed a piece called Cowboys and Marlboro Men. It took leaving the USA to become aware of how much our culture glorifies the self-made man, the solo journeyer, the exceptional individual.

I held auditions last week for a new choreography on my Pollination sculpture which arrived last month. I had groups of five dancers move on the sculpture at once. It was super satisfying to see the sculpture in motion, one that I had designed in miniature out of wire during Shelter in Place. Now it’s 650 lbs of stainless steel and sits 16’ wide by 8’ tall. 

After the audition, some dancers asked for feedback when they were not accepted. There were a few of these dancers who made a mistake that I know I myself have made many times in my life and very possibly continue to make. 

An audition is by definition competitive. The director can’t accept everyone. Some make it, some don’t. We are trained to stand out. We become very aware of the competition and if we are strategic, we position ourselves as different in some way.

In this audition, the five-performer groups had to make the flower sculpture bloom by slowly moving the petals down. I noticed that a performer wanted to show she was more precisely following the direction and knew better the length of two minutes. This comes up in dance sometimes - the ability to know how to keep time without a sound score or clock. Her petal was more correct, but it was very out of sync with the rest of her group. Her effort rendered the overall visual experience ineffective. I don’t blame her, she was doing her best and was trying for a competitive edge in the audition.

Another dancer felt that the rest of her group was trying too hard to stand out with a lot of energy, so she chose to be very relaxed and act as if she was falling asleep. This wasn't ultimately successful because I was looking for sparks of excitement. I was looking for dancers who could make this sculpture sing.

In both of these cases, the dancers over estimated the importance of being different from the others. If they had focused solely on delivering their best performance on the sculpture, their minds would have been less busy and more available to achieve the task at hand. They each would have been more amazing.

When I began my Creative Journey practice two years ago, I asked myself, ‘What do I have to offer that other people in this field don’t?’ I have 28 years of working with psychedelics in creative process for personal growth. This is a truly unique offering. But initially, in my insecurity, I felt like I should position myself against what was already on offer. I justified my approach by saying that it was different and better than what was happening in research labs and more customized and involved than what was being offered by other guides in the underground. Was this necessary? Most people just want a good, reliable, stable guide who doesn’t annoy them. Some want my specific approach.

Regardless, I now feel like it was a misplaced competitive impulse. I have since taken to running Creative Journey in the way I have always run Capacitor, my arts non-profit - by engaging in the favor economy. I look for ways that I can support other people’s goals while pursuing my own.

I also see how all the other approaches to psychedelic work can feed my own deeper understanding. For instance, I relish the morsels of insight the diligent researchers offer up from their standardized, less bespoke approaches. I am grateful for the wealth of knowledge from underground practitioners who have been performing their own experiments for years and sharing their findings.

How can I, like the dancers in my audition, deliver my most powerful, moving work irrespective of my position within the wider community? How can I be my most amazing - rather than simply win?

Let it be Broken

I am generally an empowered individual. I think that I create my own destiny and I can probably have an effect on most things in my life. But that doesn’t mean I can make everything beautiful.

The woman in ballet class who I toured with two decades ago and generally acts like she doesn’t know who I am, let it be broken. The downstairs neighbor who harassed us until we moved out and continues to do so after we are gone, let it be broken. The family members who don’t behave within my realm of acceptable, let it be broken. I don’t need to make everything beautiful. I don’t need to feel bad about it either.

Not everything can and should be beautiful. Let the brokenness show us what is functional and whole: the client who got me going to an exercise class; the neighbor whose kid is now best friends with our son; the love that emanates from our home; the cats that make us stop and love them at least twenty times a day. Let it be whole. Let us be blessed.

Psilocybin doesn’t care so much about your feelings. It will hold up a mirror and show you what and how you are. The answer rarely seems to be ‘fix it’. Most often the answer is ‘see it as it is.’ Do you need to know the exact cause of your habitual suffering in order to decide to adjust and make it irrelevant?

You don’t have to do that digging to shift. Just shift.

I have limited time and energy. We are old so soon and dead after that. This life is a brief stage in a larger process of which we have no conception. I hold these hearts in my hands while I briefly exist.

Killing My Ego: The Founding of Creative Journey

During Shelter in Place, my husband and I took turns going on sensory deprivation journeys in our closet. We have two small children so we had to be out of the way so the other parent could do all the things. I don’t actually recommend this approach to most parents as it is pretty much the black diamond of psychedelic journeying. The visions are loud, immersive, and there is really no break, escape, or support.

When I was a child, I was in a young dance company that toured to my elementary school in Connecticut. I had choreographed a solo and was super anxious about performing it for my classmates. I really didn’t know what to expect.

I remember the huge applause. I was shocked and pleased. It turned out that I was good at choreographing - at entertaining. My dance was funny. Afterwards I was the only member of the young company invited to perform her choreography at the end of year recital. A very big deal.

That day a pattern was established and from then on, I was always working on some sort of choreography. I was driven.

Born the youngest of six, I would do almost anything to get attention from my father. In 2008, I presented one of my dance films at the Ecological Society of America conference. It was a film called ‘biome’ that was shot in Dr Nalini Nadkarni’s study site in the Monteverde Cloud Forest of Costa Rica. A writer from Nature Magazine was captivated. He wrote a short review of the dance film. My dad only read Nature and Science magazine, so I emailed him the article. No response. When I called him to see if he had gotten it, he said, “THE Nature Magazine?” I said “Yes”.

In that moment I realized that if a review in Nature Magazine (a publication that just about never reviews dance, performance, or film of any kind) did not impress him, nothing would. It was liberating. I never had to try to impress the un-impressible again.

But why was I was still so extremely driven? What was I after anyway?

Then I went into the closet.

I spent about four hours battling my ego. I would have deleted myself all together if I could. This urge was overwhelming. I couldn’t think of one reason to ever make art again. The art was not important. It wasn’t worth the struggle. It wasn’t worth the storage space (I design in steel so storage is a thing). It wasn’t worth the Carbon footprint. If I could have given my 25 year old art non-profit to our social media manager, I would have.

Eventually when I was coming back to myself, I had a few realizations. I could feel that I was so driven partly because I didn’t trust the future. My bright-future brother had died just after his second child was born at twenty-eight. I didn’t trust the future so I had to do it all right now.

I also saw my son in my vision and realized that if I never actualized anything again, it would have a negative effect on him. For some reason, his self-esteem was tied to mine and if I didn’t project myself into the world in some way, he wouldn’t either.

Then I settled down with my husband to organize my experience. He said that it all seemed to make a lot of sense. In my twenties, I was all about group - producing nightclub events, touring, doing anything I could with my company to amplify group energy. In my thirties I was doing my more serious work - some of my best motion sculptures and full-evening shows. I was mastering my craft. In my forties, I was now about the family and individual connections.

I didn’t come out of that journey knowing what I should do next even though that had been the intention. But I now realize that I had to kill my artist ego in order to make room for a new endeavor. While I was feeding that insatiable beast there was no room for anything new. For me, this death was the liberation I needed to arrive in my Now.

A few months later, I launched Creative Journey.

I had to untie my artwork from my identity. That day, art became something I do rather than who I am. I am still creating - I might even be making my best work yet. But I am doing it because it is interesting to me or because it feels good or because the images came. I am not doing it for attention, affection, or affirmation.

Often the vision doesn’t come during the vision quest, but afterwards, once you make some space. Then there is room for something new to emerge.

Let the Body Lead: unleashing superpowers

I went to Burning Man by myself for the first time in 2008. I drove up in my truck, parked next to the truck of a man I had met the week before at Harbin Hotsprings. He said I could stay at the Alternative Energy Camp without issue. This was the first time I was going to Burning Man without my dance company. It was the first time I was going to Burning Man without a formal performance appearance planned. I decided that I wanted to improvise. I had a score. I was going to go to whatever space had good music and I was going to drop a dance bomb.

A dance bomb is something I made up. I would walk into a camp, dance as hard as I could for five to ten minutes, and then I would walk out. I would raise the energy in the room but I wouldn’t get stuck or feel committed to staying there all night. The way I would dance is that I would let go as much as possible. I would let my body lead. I would give my body over to the music and let it control my movements. This is something I had known how to do for a long time. People would be amazed at how synched I would be with the sound because if I was thinking about it, there would be a delay. But since I was bypassing my self-conscious, critical mind, I was able to be on each and every sonic transition without trying.

It worked. I would walk in, drop a bomb, raise the energy, and walk out. Often people would follow me out of the club and ask where I was going. I would say, ‘That’s it. I dropped my bomb and I’m done.’ It was a practice in freedom. It was a practice in non-commitment. It was a practice in flow. It was a practice in personal influence. I loved it. 

Recently I was at a party and I realized that the superpower I have to let the music move my body is given to anyone who takes a solid dose of Ketamine. They begin to feel the freedom, flow, and ecstasy of watching their bodies move before their critical mind has time to decide, critique, or control. Ketamine… bionic flow in a parallel universe, an ocean wave of energy moving your body along with the energy in the room. All one flow.

I love to watch the sheer joy that people experience when leading with their movement. My secret power is now theirs. They are watching themselves, surprised by their own liberation. The compound is the teacher - showing them their own potential for freedom and flow. Afterward, I am not sure if they can always capture that level of inhibition on their own, but first, you need to know it exists in you in order to pursue it.

Commit!

When I began climbing more, I would go to Mission Cliffs gym and have the front desk announce that I was looking for a climbing partner. I found the best friends this way. One day, I met KimPhung. She is a beautiful woman who does something with accounting during the day, but her true passion is climbing. She loves rocks and has been around the world climbing them. 

I grew up in Ballet class. From the time I was three, I have always taken Ballet class. When I was nine years old, it became clear to me that I would never be a professional Ballet dancer. My spine wasn’t very flexible. My hips were not turned out enough. So that day, I decided to be a choreographer. I was already in a Young Company of dancers that was performing a lot locally and I had already choreographed my first dance, “Who Put the Bop in the Bop Sh Bop Sh Bop” - my father’s favorite song. The director of the dance company loved my sister and didn’t like me much. She made this painfully clear. So I also decided that I was going to have my own dance company and it was going to be much more successful than hers.

This gives you a glimpse into the intensity of the ego I grew up with.

All those years of Ballet, taught me how to do what I am told. That is what Ballet is. The Ballet Master tells you what to do and you do it. The meaner they are, the better they were considered - back then at least. My sister and I would laugh, smile broadly, and do it. We were very good at taking that mean discipline and turning it into joy. We were very good students. The Ballet teachers at SUNY Purchase generally loved having us in their classes. We might not have Ballet bodies, but we sure seemed happy when we were busting our asses.

When someone is better than you in class, it is pretty obvious. Their lines are better. They can do things with more control and smoothness, Their sharp moves are sharper. Their feet are faster. I would stand behind that dancer at the barre and copy as much of their betterness as I could. Sure the teacher was teaching, but I was absorbing everything I could about what this person had.

Usually someone would be better at the Adagio than me, but I would kill it in the petit and grand Allegro. I was born to jump. My short curvy spine served as a spring. My long legs had more push. I was small and airborne. I had ballon.

KimPhung was definitely a better climber than I was. This was quickly obvious to me. I was going to stand behind her at our metaphorical barre - the climbing wall. She soon told me which climbs to climb and when I was up high and unable to make the next move, she would yell “Commit” and basically refuse to belay me down until I had completed the route. I called her Coach. I told her that I grew up in Ballet and was good at doing what I was told. So when she said “Commit” and “Keep Going”  or “Finish” of “Get your ass up that wall!” a part of my brain took over and just did it. It was a great neural hack. I had this deep pattern of accepting pain, fear, and struggle, and trusting someone outside of myself more than the physical sensations that I was feeling. This potentially dangerous short circuiting of the pain and fear response does allow you to do great things, if you have a coach you can trust. Bypassing the small sense of self in honor of a greater goal is powerful. 

So that is a tool I carry in my back pocket. At times, as a director I have pulled out the ‘Commit’ or other strong directives in order to pull greatness out of my performers. As a psychedelic guide, I tell my clients to ‘Commit’ to the journey. If something is frightening or unpleasant, move towards it. Look it in the eye and ask it why it is here and what it has to show you. ‘Commit’ to the journey. Almost everything you do in life it better if you commit. If you can’t commit to it, you probably shouldn’t do it.

Commit!

Gardening: Tending the Garden of Your Mind

This afternoon, I asked myself what I do for people. The answer came to me: I garden. I help people bloom and cultivate their consciousness.

Early on, I realized that psychedelic guiding utilizes everything I have ever done and everything I know. 

My first job outside of the family business was for a hobby farm down the road in the Connecticut woods. My siblings and I all worked for the Johnstons, mowing their lawns, planting their large garden, pruning their fruit trees, weeding their flower beds, and sorting their recycling (which mainly consisted of one-gallon bottles of vodka). Coby Johnston taught me to listen with stories of her life as a show dancer on cruise ships with her two sisters who were all the same height and weight - five feet tall and 95 lbs. Mr. Johnston taught me to love gardening. After digging up potatoes for a while, he would gesture for me to sit, saying, "Never stand when you can sit, never sit when you can lie," while dragging off his Marlboro and smiling. He taught me to work hard and taught me how to chill, both of which I do in liberally today.

From that point forward, I've had some sort of garden. Plants are inherently optimistic. They are structurally hopeful. They root in the ground and reach up toward the light. When I work with psychedelic clients, I look for dead wood that can be pruned and space to level up - to bloom and access more light. I am not making it happen; rather, I'm adjusting the conditions so their inner design becomes realized.

When I meet with potential clients, I try to sense if I can help. Can I open up more light to them? Can I ground them to gain a more solid connection to the Earth? I look for ways to fertilize their soil and identify dead things attached to their spirits that could be removed.

Guiding is gardening.

Art Practice: Where does your art come from?

When I go to see a theater or art show, I wonder where the work came from. What part of the brain was most involved in the creation of this work?

Sometimes a dance show is about a performer proving to themselves that they are beautiful. This can be so healing for someone who was told at some point in their life that they weren’t beautiful. This performance ritual becomes an alchemic practice in self-love.

Sometimes an art show is a political response to the way things are and provides an alternate potential. These artworks are clever, strategic, and logical. Some of these works liberate my mind.

At some point, I realized that all of my artworks were about feeling …producing the conditions that would elicit a particular feeling. My choreography is an experience design for the performers and the audience.

The movements are not there to make anyone look good - although I enjoy beauty and visual balance. The movements are not there to show virtuosity - although I love to be inspired and impressed. They are there to make the mover feel a specific way and the audience to sense that through their mirror neurons. 

My sculptures are experience designs for the person moving on them and for the person watching. The sculptures are pleasing to look at, but the primary reason for the form is not the shape. The first reason is the feeling in the body. I want to make things that feel good, connecting, empowering, powerful, or intimate.

When I began guiding Creative Journeys, I realized that I was doing the same thing. I was using art and psychedelic practice to deliver a feeling that would result in transformation. Sometimes we need to have the feeling to know something is possible. 

In order to do this, I draw on my lifelong habit of deeply experiencing other people’s feelings and imagining what would feel better. I could always sense the darkness that people didn’t describe in words, but now it was actually useful. I could now see their darkness as layers of smog or pollution covering their pristine spirits. Then I design an experience that removes the smog.

I See Shadows

I have always been able to see the shadows - the darkness that people didn’t say but were there. I didn’t like this quality. I thought it meant that I wasn’t an optimistic, light person. I thought I must be dark because I saw it. 

Something has shifted recently since I have been guiding professionally. I see the shadows, but I see them as ghosts attached to the pristine spirits of people — separate but attached. It is a big shift, to see the shadows as removable rather than integral to the person and therefore something to fear. The shadow can still make the person behave in ways that are less optimal, but I see that there is some wiggle room there where I used to see the shadow as fixed.

I also have begun to see the shadow as connected to a series of stories and events. This past weekend, I met a friend of our friends who came to dinner at the house we were renting. The man had a lot of agitated energy. I could see his shadow. He was in constant search for relief from his own company. He would take anything and everything to get a break from life as usual inside his own mind. In the past, I would simply find this sort of person annoying - too on edge. But now I saw that he was running so hard and then I saw that his domineering father probably made him feel small and rejected. I saw that he was revolting against a father who was no longer there and ended up revolting against everyone he came in contact with instead. I saw how his work as a conservative speech writer was at odds with his own experiences in the world, but that he justified it as a job he needed and pay he enjoyed. I saw that his wife was constantly trying to steady his boat. I saw that she was driven by a desire to help which she probably developed as the child of an alcoholic. I saw how exhausting it was for her and how she would give up at some point. I saw all of this and I didn’t know these people or if any of it was true. 

Some of us have trauma and are able to separate it from our spirits. Some of us can’t seem to do it on our own. Ghosts of people and situations past attach to their spirits and keep them from being in their now - keep them from their light. They emit complicated, confusing energy. They are preoccupied and not present. They are seeing their world through a fog. 

Working with psilocybin mushrooms can be very painful. It can leave your spirit floating outside a familiar drama. And when you return, it can be hard to feel what you got so used to, you stopped noticing. This is the best sort of pain if you are equipped to handle it. The fog is replaced with an acute pain that requires a shift.

You may ask: Am I a good person? What sort of parent am I? Have I been too self-serving? Am I a consumptive person? Do I have a purpose in this life beyond feeding my own ego? Am I connected to my partner? Am I connected to anyone? What is worth actualizing in this lifetime?

So much can change in an instant if we can face the questions with honesty and emerge with certainty.

Duets: Giving and Taking Weight

In 1997 I founded my dance company Capacitor in San Francisco. I began a hyper creative phase of making ten full-evening works over the next twenty-two years. Many of the pieces in those shows were duets. I loved to choreograph them and I loved to dance them. I loved being present with another person on stage - communicating non-verbally in front of hundreds of people. Even when performing to music, there would be a space of silence around us where we were in crystal clear communication. 

The trick, was to let the audience witness us connecting. We had to let the audience see us. We had to let them project themselves and their own relationship onto us. Whether it was a love duet or hate duet, whether it was sexual, primal, or profound - these stories never got old for me…never lost their thrill.

I was good at smoothly transitioning between giving weight and taking weight. I knew how to hold my weight so I was lighter - knowing how to lengthen my body and not land like lead on my partner. I knew how to ground myself so I could be a stable base for my partner. I could hold much larger people by managing my relationship to gravity.

I remember going out to the (SAR) Search and Rescue site of Yosemite and meeting a bunch of professional climbers. One of these climbers is a bear of a man called Greg. We all went to the waterfalls for a sunny afternoon. Between leaps into the water, I began to fly people in Acroyoga. I offered to fly Greg. Grounding my pelvis carefully, I lifted him off the ground. His spine elongated in the Folded Leaf pose. I twisted him. I stretched him. 

Much later he told me what a profound experience that had been for him. He had never been lifted by anyone in his adult life. He had never had anyone take his full weight. This short flight had moved him greatly and had given me the opportunity to be strong, solid, and stable, something I enjoy at least as much as flight.

Capacitor became known for a number of things, but one of them was for our strong women who gladly caught, carried, supported, battled, and threw our men.

In Creative Journey, I guide couples through Anniversary Refresh rituals in which they remember why they originally fell in love and how to reawaken to one another today. Enjoy your duet - the art of giving and taking weight.

From the Forest

I’m from the forest. I would escape the small house in the woods, crammed with too many large personalities, and commune with the creatures and plants in the woods.

In early life, I would play imaginary games with my friend and sister in the forest. I was Mrs. Rabbit. Alison was Mr. Snake. My sister, Ms. Deer.

The wood was a refuge for me. There was more personal space and less oppression. I was the youngest of six kids in an A-frame that housed eight. Often, it felt like I was under a pile of chairs with people sitting in them, arranged at precarious angles. Oppressive.

When I got out of the house and into the woods I immediately had more psychic space. I could mentally spread out. The large pond in front of our house was percolating with slime and life.  There were small creatures to observe, mating newts to marvel at, large deer to admire, fallen trees to traverse, and plants to tend.

Two years ago, when I began guiding formally on my friend’s land, my spirit sighed. Ah, peace. It is a Redwood forest valley - familiar and comforting. My bucket fills up and my spirit rests. All my early associations with safety and peace in the forest come flooding in.

This puts me in a great state of mind to guide. The forest fills me and I shower that fullness on my clients. I feel safe and comfortable and can easily hold them in that container of ease.

If the guide doesn’t feel safe and comfortable, that will work its way into the journey for the participant. Set and setting are important for the traveler and for the guide.